Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Mobile Clinic

Most of our evenings at the lodge were spent preparing for clinic day. Hannah took on the huge task of organizing the medications and setting up "stations" for us to count and pack pills. I made a station just for the liquid medication and took on the fun task of pouring liquid medication into 100ml bottles. It was a sticky mess but it all worked out and we were prepared for our first clinic day.

For all my pharmacy friends.....we for sure used the resources we had I'm certain this isn't the way it works in the United States :)

Clinic Days were exhausting emotionally and physically!! When we first arrived on Wednesday morning for our first clinic I was just amazed by all the people that were there. When our bus started down the dirt road to Susu there were people following and chasing after the bus just excited we were there.

Like every morning in Susu it started with a prayer and a lots of songs from the children and it was an amazing start to our day! When the children are standing there singing and praising God I couldn't help but SMILE and know that God was watching over the village of Susu and protecting them.

The first day I think we assessed and talked with over 360 patients. Most of which were just minor things a cough, headache, back pain, etc......It was burn season while we were there which they can only burn fields in August so there were a lot of people complaining of a cough most likely due to the smoke. I did see one little girl that appeared very sick she was lethargic, had a rash, fever, and runny nose......we were able to treat her with antibiotics and some Tylenol and I pray that she is doing well today. It is hard to see really sick people knowing they need to be in a hospital but in Susu the resources just aren't available. It's an hour drive to the nearest hospital and none of them have vehicles so it's at least an 8 mile walk to get to the nearest road where someone may give them a "lift" or a ride. Most people have no money to pay for health care, and can't miss a day working in the fields to provide food for their family.

Around 2pm I looked out of my clinic station to still see a long line of people waiting to be seen, I was afraid we were going to end up having to turn people away and not be able to see everyone. This was hard to think about knowing that several of these people had walked miles in hope that we could help them, how could we turn them away?? It was Amazing I'm not sure how we pulled it off other then through God he showed us we could do this and we did by 5pm everyone had been seen and through the pharmacy.

I think most of us can say that night we were exhausted and emotionally drained frustrated wishing we could do more. We did everything we could do with the resources we were given and yet at times it still didn't feel like enough.